Jens Lund

The uniden­ti­fied hor­mon­al defense against weight gain

Abstract

Mam­malian ener­gy bal­ance reg­u­la­tion has evolved to keep body fat­ness with­in a range that sup­ports sur­vival. Dur­ing the last three decades, obe­si­ty researchers have uncov­ered key aspects of phys­i­ol­o­gy that pre­vent fat mass from becom­ing dan­ger­ous­ly low. In con­trast, the mech­a­nisms that coun­ter­act exces­sive adi­pose expan­sion remain large­ly unknown. 

Para­bio­sis stud­ies dat­ing back to the 1950s sug­gest the exis­tence of a blood-borne mol­e­cule that defends against weight gain. This pre­sen­ta­tion will high­light the research sup­port­ing an “uniden­ti­fied fac­tor of over­feed­ing” and the­o­ret­i­cal mod­els that explain its role in mam­malian body weight homeostasis. 

Reveal­ing the cir­cu­lat­ing sig­nal­ing molecule(s) that defend against weight gain could end a long-last­ing enig­ma of ener­gy bal­ance reg­u­la­tion and facil­i­tate a much-need­ed break­through in the pre­ven­tion and phar­ma­co­log­i­cal treat­ment of obesity.

Biog­ra­phy

Jens Lund is trained in nutri­tion, bio­chem­istry, and human biol­o­gy and holds a PhD with­in ener­gy metab­o­lism. He is a post­doc­tor­al fel­low work­ing in the research group of Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Christof­fer Clem­mensen at the Novo Nordisk Foun­da­tion Cen­ter for Basic Meta­bol­ic Research at Uni­ver­si­ty of Copen­hagen (Den­mark). Jens is inter­est­ed in under­stand­ing the bio­log­i­cal mech­a­nisms that reg­u­late body weight and explain why some are prone to weight gain while oth­ers resist the obe­so­genic envi­ron­ment and stay thin through­out life (see e.g. PMIDs 32097406, 32674987, 35970448 and 37291457).